Endorsement Interviews: Leland Yee

09.27.11 - 12:57 pm | Tim Redmond |

(73)

State Sen. Leland Yee, who is running for mayor, has been involved in local politics since the 1980s, when he joined the School Board. He's been a supervisor elected at-large, a district supervisor, a state Assembly member and now a senator. And he stirs up strong passions in the city -- supporters of Mayor Ed Lee say they urged him to get into the mayor's race in part to stop Yee from winning. Yee was a fiscal conservative on the Board of Supervisors, but in Sacramento, he's been a foe of budget cuts. And he told us he wants to see new revenue -- including a city income tax -- to make sure that "the people who need services get them."

You can listen to our interview with Yee and see the video after the jump.

Yee by endorsements2011

Comments

Structural Anarchism

googles this item www.edusoft.ro/brain/index.php/libri/article/view/84/200 a paper about Noam Chomsky.

Skimmed it quickly, but it is quite interesting. Strangely, a quote by Ayn Rand closes the piece!? MB

Posted by CanadianSocialist on Sep. 30, 2011 @ 12:53 pm

Rand's Libertarianism

Rand's libertarian argument is indeed powerful when taken as a tool for personal integrity, freedom, and volition; it's only when the same philosophy is then foolishly employed as the ethic by which to run a society or a civilization that it turns from a powerful personal guide into an abject collective disaster.

Just as corporations are not individuals and should not be organized as such, nor are societies, where a balance between the individual, and the society, as an ecological cooperative, must be established for life and humankind to flourish.

Each solely for his own interest as the mode of civilizational governance, leads to total social, and today environmental, failure.

Posted by Eric Brooks on Sep. 30, 2011 @ 3:52 pm

Agreed, that's why a union endorsement is a red flag

when considering any Matoral candidate.

Posted by PaulT on Sep. 28, 2011 @ 11:02 am

This pretty much sums up PaulT, and so, bears repeating.

PaulTea, I've Noticed...
I've noticed when you get your ass kicked in a debate (as happens so often) your next move is always to salve your ego by lashing out on as many threads, with as many empty, smart ass, cartoonishly retrograde comments and abuses as you can muster, in as short a time as possible.

You've got some serious fragile ego issues, don't you...?

Posted by Guest on Sep. 28, 2011 @ 8:19 pm

Greg X, You have no

Greg X,

You have no ethics or you're totally self-deluded. Probably a mixture of both. I'm gonna leave you sitting here alone now with the rotting corpse of Yee's chances to be Mayor. My work here is done.

Enjoy the smell,

Posted by h. brown on Sep. 29, 2011 @ 12:17 pm

That's right h

Go back to shilling for your progressive friends Miyamoto and Gascon. You're in good company.

Posted by Greg on Sep. 29, 2011 @ 8:40 pm

H. Brown has no political friends

He's basically the DUFF of the political world - the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. The one who comes along for comic relief and who, at the end of the night, someone (depending on their intoxication level) will fuck - and then deny EVERYTHING the next day. He's the water boy of SF's political world - he gives and gives and gives, while taking a lot of abuse in return, but he NEVER gets anything back.

Yet somehow - that's enough for him.

Posted by Right on Sister Snapples on Sep. 29, 2011 @ 8:50 pm

Mayoral Forum on Dogs

While our event today doesn't speak directly to this issue, per se, hearing how mayoral candidates respond about our four-legged companions can help us as voters understand how a new mayor will operate if elected. Check it out.

WHAT: DogPAC of SF Mayoral Forum
WHEN: TODAY, October 1, 2011
TIME: 2-4pm
WHERE: Congregation Sha'ar Zahav
290 Dolores St @ 16th St
SF, CA 94103

Note: This location does not allow dogs except service animals. Thank you for your cooperation.

Posted by DogPAC of SF on Oct. 01, 2011 @ 9:06 am

UNFIT to be the MAYOR of San

UNFIT to be the MAYOR of San Francisco!!!

Posted by Guest on Oct. 01, 2011 @ 9:12 am

And Darwin too,

has had his work bastardized by the powerful, twisting and distorting the facts to suit their own purposes. The survival of the fitest is a principal that applies over millenia not to some twerp without morals. By these standards Bernie Madoff should be one of the fitest of all, except that he got knocked down a notch or two on the evolutionary ladder didn't he. Same for Kenneth Lay, and our home grown twit Conrad Black.

David Korten has a wonderful speech on Alternative Radio entitled "Money Or Life" . It is also available in slightly more preachy form on You Tube.

Posted by CanadianSocialist on Oct. 02, 2011 @ 4:37 pm

Darwin, Smith, & Ruthlessnes vs Fitness

The really fascinating deep history, is that Darwin's ideas were derived originally from Adam Smith's concepts of free market competition between individuals.

As to Madoff, let's make sure and not confuse ruthlessness, or brute power, with fitness.

Fitness can just as easily be a propensity for cooperation and sharing among individuals and groups, as it can be competitive domination of one individual or group over another. And ruthlessness and brute dominance can easily cause evolutionary failure, instead of success.

Finally, it is legitimate to say, that Rand definitely drank her own cool aid, and had an atrociously poor and juvenile philosophy of social governance.

Posted by Guest on Oct. 02, 2011 @ 5:04 pm

Spot on Guest

person, but you sound like Eric, or are there three of us who appear to see what is being foisted on the uninformed many ( e.g. PaulT for one).

The Rand philosophy seems to attribute equal intelligence and ability to all, and those who do not "achieve success" must be lazy. This is the "rugged individualism" that seems to be prevalent in U.S. society these days, or is that just in the media? Noam Chomsky constantly quotes studies where the majority (over 65%!) support social programs such as single payer health care and social security.

Posted by CanadianSocialist on Oct. 02, 2011 @ 5:47 pm

Yes, MB, I caught Eric out yesterday posting as "Guest" and,

ironically, right before he complained about others using Sock Puppets.

It's true that the US embodies rugged capitalism and a free market economy. But most other places on the planet, including your Canada, are very different.

So why berate having that choice? Those who want a Randian Nirvana can choose to live in the US. While if you want socialism and the lowest common denominator, you have many other places to choose from.

It's called diversity, and I celebrate it. Do you?

Posted by PaulT on Oct. 02, 2011 @ 6:03 pm

Choice is great

PaulT, but from my perspective, most Americans don't have a choice, or a voice. My daughter's friend is from Philly and her grandmother was visiting a few years ago. She was practically in tears when I mentioned "Dubya". She stated that dissent was not tolerated, "you're with us or agin' us" and any opposing view is stifled This is not quite the vision I have of "Nirvana" Randian or otherwise.

I wish all the diversity onto you that is possible. The trouble is, it is not evident in the U.S.A. in 2011 (and we are heading in that direction too with our facist Mr. Harper in charge). MB

P.S. Darn Eric, I thought we were reaching a super-majority of 3 on here, but alas its still only the two of us.

Posted by CanadianSocialist on Oct. 03, 2011 @ 1:25 pm

PaulT I forgot to address "Free Market" economy.

That is not what I would call the U.S. economy or the world economy for that matter.

The price of oil is not based at all on supply and demand but on fabricated crises. Oooops, there's a hurricane coming, better raise the price of gas just in case the refineries are affected. Ooooops, better raise the price of crude, one of our puppet dictators is getting our of control etc.

As a socialist, I would be willing to see a true market economy have a go, but that is totally not what the world or U.S. economy is today. MB

Posted by CanadianSocialist on Oct. 03, 2011 @ 1:58 pm

Libertarian Socialism & Economic Literacy Are Spreading Rapidly

No worries CS,

Over the internet and through basic human social networks - libertarian socialism, anarchism, consensus based decision making, and true economic literacy which recognizes the actual nature of money, finance, and modern capitalism is spreading like wildfire.

This new speed of light direct democratic organizing is what has created the nationwide rapid uprising of the Wall Street protests.

True democracy is on the move. ;)

Posted by Eric Brooks on Oct. 03, 2011 @ 6:45 pm

Yup, It's Me & Smith's View On Social Controls

Yup its me. I just forgot to enter my name a couple of times on this thread. That 'Guest' fellow who's been pontificating about Rand, etc, has consistently been myself. ;)

It should be noted that Adam Smith himself was a strong supporter of regulation on capital and saw it as essential in order for capitalism to succeed without crises and excesses.

Posted by Eric Brooks on Oct. 02, 2011 @ 6:39 pm

Something serious for a change?

boys and girls,

Did y'all see the NIners game? Lord, it was a thing of beauty. Down 3-23 they shut down the most dangerous quarterback in history (Michael Vick when he's not busy hanging and electrocuting dogs) for the entire second half they crafted an amazing 0-21
burst and won 24-23.

Speaking after the game, losing coach Andy Reed (whose sons have been charged with heavy drug dealing) said that the 2 misses by the rookie kicker he hired to replace the 12 year Philly vet he fired for missing 2 kicks while worrying about his 9 year-old daughter's major ovary surgery for cancer ...

"You have to be able to separate family from your job and he didn't do his job."

Today he said:

"I'll be posting as 'Guest' because when I'm getting my ass kicked I don't like my good name involved."

A shout-out to Eric Brooks and Greg Kamin and to the ever elusive, 'Guest'.

Go Niners!

Posted by h. brown on Oct. 02, 2011 @ 8:45 pm

"PaulT is completely clueless"

I thought the post, referenced above, from "Guest" was an interesting read, deserving of a response, and might even lead to the kind of debate that PaulT claims to want. I'm still waiting and hoping to benefit from his knowledge and wisdom.
But maybe he didn't read it yet, or is to busy chalking up another Pyrrhic victory. I think his most recent claim was that he had "won" 99.99% of his skirmishes here. Following his recent discreditation and exposure as a dissembler on this site, yeah I'm mincing words, I think there are adequate grounds to refute those stats.
Occupy Wall Street.
Go 9'ers.
YIPPIE.

Posted by Patrick Monk RN on Oct. 03, 2011 @ 9:49 pm

PT. Discredited Dissembler

This character also recently posted claiming that America had 'the best health care system in the world'. I responded with this link:-
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/opinion/12sun1.html
To the best of my understanding the WHO currently rates us as #37 worldwide.

Posted by Patrick Monk RN on Oct. 03, 2011 @ 11:17 pm

A Dose for PaulT

Hey Patrick you socialist RN you. :-) Do you think PaulT has ever caught a social disease he didn't like? I mean he seems to do an awful lot of swallowing when it comes to corporate propaganda, in this case HMO's.

Ralph Nader has an excellent speech archived at Alternative Radio ( www.alternativeradio.org ) regarding the political impossibility of implementing single payer health care now prevalent in 99% of developed and many third world countries.

I'll be out on Oct. 15th in Toronto for "Occupy Bay St." protests and encourage all to take part. I believe it was Noam Chomsky who stated that politicians cannot do anything unless the people force them to do it. This is our chance to force Obama (a reasonable person in my opinion) to get off his buttocks and stand up for what he claims to believe in.

Good Luck, MB

Posted by CanadianSocialist on Oct. 04, 2011 @ 6:22 pm

Unfortunately, Obama Is A Chicago Machine Politician

Sorry to burst the bubble, but Obama got his legs in politics in the corrupt Chicago machine and he definitely makes decisions commensurate with that ominous history.

In fact, a few months ago he made William Daley (son of the original corrupt Chicago machine mayor Richard Daley) his chief of staff.

William Daley is also a former executive of JP Morgan Chase.

Obama is a baddie.

And he just proved it by opening up more Alaskan oil drilling this week...

Posted by Eric Brooks on Oct. 04, 2011 @ 7:01 pm

Radical Democracy

I prefer plain old anarchy over anarchism because anarchy is dynamic and in motion while anarchism is a fixed, static ideology.

Radical Democracy is another term that I use. People like democracy, see Occupy Wall Street for an example.

Posted by marcos on Oct. 04, 2011 @ 9:46 pm